Report: New free Pokemon game revealed as a movie tie-in

The last week has seen a number of interesting Pokemon announcements, and as we receive the debut details for Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire with a trailer, and a European release date for Pokemon Art Academy too, another new Pokemon game has been revealed, and it’s free.

Fansite PokeJungle reports that a game called 1000 Pokemon and the Thieves (or The Band of Thieves and 1000 Pokemon) has been revealed in the latest issue of Japanese magazine, CoroCoro.

The game is a tie-in to the upcoming Pokemon movie, Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction, and will be available to download for free (for a limited time) on 3DS in Japan starting June 5th. We’ll get more news on this game on May 15th, where we’ll find out more about its features including StreetPass functionality that lets you collect more Pokemon to use in battle.

Here’s a scan from CoroCoro magazine showing in-game screenshots from 1000 Pokemon and the Thieves:

The artstyle looks to be very distinct for a Pokemon game, with the little critters and other characters represented by a paper cut-out aesthetic. Hopefully this makes it to the West in the future, too.